TIM RYAN / TRYAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jason Scott Lee and Tia Carrere met the press when Disney introduced "Lilo & Stitch" to the media last week in Orlando, Fla.
ORLANDO, FLA. -- One is Hollywood, the other Hilo. She loves the bright lights, he shies away from them. Her nails are polished and gleaming as if she's just walked out of a Beverly Hills salon; his are worn and stained red from the volcanic soil he farms at his Big Island home. Carrere, Lee lend voices
to make Disney historyThe city girl and country boy share an island soul
By Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comTia Carrere and Jason Scott Lee are at Disney World to publicize the studio's latest animation feature "Lilo & Stitch," lending their voices to a couple of the movie's Hawaiian characters.
Carrere, in a flowing red silk dress, diamond-encrusted watch and kukui nut necklace, floats confidently into the interview room where dozens of reporters find themselves suddenly transfixed. Lee, on the other hand, seems reluctant to be here, walking in wearing shorts, a purple T-shirt and slippers.
But he's the first to speak. "Aloha," he says.
Let the publicity games begin.
No one, it seems, can do multiple press interviews better than Carrere. She's polished and polite and only complains after most reporters have left that some should have come better prepared. Both actors are bound by their Hawaii roots and island ohana which, coincidentally, is the animated film's basic premise. Carrere, the voice of Nani, Lilo's tough sister, told Lee about the part of Hawaiian surfer David Kawena whom Disney was trying to cast.
"She called and said, 'Eh braddah, there's dis part for you in dis Disney film and I tol' 'em to call you and they going hire you,' " Lee says. "I was a bit hesitant because I didn't know if I wanted to leave the islands."
Carrere interrupts. "I said, 'Eh stupid head! This is a Disney animated feature; it's eternal, it's history. What's there to think about??"
The two actors were the only members of the "Lilo & Stitch" cast who did not have to audition. "I guess because we were the only people they knew who could speak pidgin fluently," Lee jokes.
Though the actors do not publicize it, there's another reason why they agreed to do the characters' voices. "Lilo & Stitch" takes place on Kauai and their characters are Hawaiian speaking English that occasionally lapses into pidgin. They wanted to make sure Hawaii and Hawaiians were properly represented.
"If there's a Disney animated feature based in Hawaii, I knew I had to be part of it," Carrere says. "I'm very proud to be from Hawaii. So there was no question (the role) was mine.
"As for suggesting Jason, it wasn't like it was some afterthought. He's the most famous actor from Hawaii I can think of."
Carrere, who attended Sacred Hearts Academy in Kaimuki, has her game face on for the series of interviews that will last some five hours. She is bubbly, personable, enthusiastic and funny. Her smile subdues the most calloused reporter and that stink eye blares, "Eh, watch it!" when a reporter starts to cross the line into personal matters.
Nani, her character, is pure tita; sweet when she needs to be and tough when she feels threatened. The fictional character and her real persona do not suffer fools lightly. So does life imitate art?
"Some people would call me bossy," she says after telling a tale of dressing down an inexperienced director in her previous syndicated TV series "Relic Hunter." "I went to Catholic school for 13 years to tone down that tita-ness in my personality."
But leaving Hawaii to find stardom in Hollywood at age 17 was a tough initiation for the self described "trusting Hawaii girl."
"I went to Hollywood with a boyfriend who turned out to be the anti-Christ ... a big scum bag," says Carrere, her voice lowering to a whisper. "I became a harder person ... because I had been gullible, naive, soft, pliable.
"That's why I got taken advantage of in the beginning," she said. "To survive, you have to have a tough skin."
Lee smiles at his friend's recollection. He spent eight years in La-La Land trying to make a name for himself, then returned home as he had promised himself. Lee last year moved from Oahu to a rustic home on 25 acres on the Big Island, where he has no electricity.
During the interviews, the self-effacing actor often lets Carrere take the lead in answers and he avoids talking to reporters about his back-to-nature lifestyle.
"I don't want to steal from why I'm here and that's 'Lilo & Stitch,'" he says, later. "I could talk forever about reducing energy consumption and consumerism, but I don't think the reporters want to hear that."
When a writer does pursue Lee's farming interests, Carrere can't help herself and cuts in.
"Oh yeah, he grows trees and other contraband and did you know hemp is a natural fiber?"
Lee laughs. "Thanks, Tia!"
Carrere herself has no plans for going native anytime soon. "Not until I can figure out how to run a blow dryer off of a solar panel," she says. "And I can't sit on grass without a blanket anyways."
WHEN CARRERE first reported to the Disney recording studio, she asked the movie's directors Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois if they wanted the pidgin "Americanized or how local people really sound in Hawaii.
"I told them if I did it strictly hardcore pidgin no one on the mainland would understand me," she said. "So we just put in a little flavor like when I call Lilo 'stupid head.'"
Often what had been written as pidgin was really "just bad English," Lee says. "They didn't have the rhythm."
Doing the voices by themselves in the recording studio was "a totally cerebral exercise," Lee said. "The hardest thing to figure out was how to calibrate the beat because it's just your voice," he said. "You're not reacting to another actor and you can't use your face or gestures to express an emotion."
The actors had to rely on the directors' observations from what they were hearing strictly through the microphone. "When I was yelling at Lilo, I had to ask how far away was she, how high is the staircase she's on, and am I standing, kneeling, squatting or running around," Carrere said.
She was so convincing in her "tita-ness" that the directors had to have her tone down her yelling at the 5-year-old Lilo in a few scenes.
"We couldn't lose sight ever that Nani and Lilo may have had a bit of an adversarial relationship but also loved each other," she said.
Nani, Carrere's character, also sings a short rendition of "Aloha O'e" to Lilo when she tells her little sister she has to leave. Carrere herself suggested using the Queen Liliuokalani song. "I called my grandmother up in Hawaii and got the lyrics from her," she said, disappointed that the song was so short. "I was so annoyed that the song is not on the soundtrack and they told me I could have one on the second CD. What the hell is that about?? I'm a lead voice!
"If there's a 'Lilo' sequel I will sing the title song and it will be Hawaiian!," she said.
"Be good now, girl," Lee warns her in a good-natured way.
LEE SAID THE directors did their homework about Hawaii culture. "The whole feeling of the islands is in the scenery, characters and nuances of our voices," Lee said. "Our fingerprints are very much on our characters.
"The bickering and love you see between Nani and Lilo is what you experience growing up in Hawaii. And I like that the film speaks about the difficulty of living in Hawaii," he said.
Carrere has already signed on for the animated TV series version to debut next year, while Lee has not.
"I live in Hollywood so it's easy for me to get to the studio, do a few episodes and then go shopping at Barney's," Carrere said.
Lee declined because there are other priorities on his dream list.
"I don't want to be tethered and have to come back to Hollywood any time they need me," he said.
The two actors attended yesterday's world premiere in Hollywood; only Carrere will be at tomorrow's special screening in Waikiki.
"Tell da peeps back home that Jason Scott Lee isn't coming to Honolulu 'cuz he's gone Hollywood," Carrere says, poking Lee in the arm.
"I would love to be there, but I have to stay in L.A. to reshoot some scenes for a movie I did last year," he explains. "I committed to it before I knew about the Honolulu screening.
Her scolds Carrere: "Don't be so Nani."
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